Fatima responded. They were as young as her daughters but too old to be cleaning houses, which was what Amir told her they did when she asked why so many of them got picked up at houses so much bigger than his.
She sat far away from two teenage boys with nose rings conversing in a language that required only two words—
dude
and
cool
—and the gesticulating of their hands and heads in a pattern that resembled wild animals more than people.
She didn’t want to appear even crazier than they, yet there was so little time to waste. She could sit and fret about Amir and the house. Or she could tell Scheherazade more about her two husbands so that Scheherazade could reveal her method of death and therefore let her know how much time she actually had left to fret. Everyone on the bus would think she was talking to herself, but what was wrong with her being just one more crazy person on the bus? It was not like she’d be riding it many more days, anyway. And there were no Arab ladies onboard to gossip about her tomorrow at Suheir Lababidi’s funeral. She turned to Scheherazade to begin the story of the man who brought her to America. “This Los Angeles doesnot even have a football team, so Marwan would not have liked it,” she started. “They try to be beautiful with their beach, but this is no Detroit.”
“As my father the
wazir
, the minister of state, used to say, the people of Mecca know their streets best.” Scheherazade nodded.
“Detroit’s streets are not mine, but still it is the best city in America,” Fatima continued. “When I arrived in New York with Marwan, it wasn’t paved with gold, like Mama had heard it would be. But I had never seen buildings so tall, so tall that I thought they might have touched God when their tops disappeared into the clouds. I was sure humans could not live so high up in the sky. I thought something so far up could not stand by itself for so long, and I kept covering my head, anticipating one to fall. When I finally opened my eyes and looked ahead instead of up, people stood in long lines for bread that was hard and thick, and shop clerks chased kids in rags for stealing apples. Big, big signs with lights advertised things I’d never heard of, and the streets were filled with hundreds of motorcars, not just one like Deir Zeitoon, and women wore funny hats, and so did the men, even Marwan, who said it was what gentlemen did.”
Fatima did not know that in telling this story of America she had reverted to English. The black and white people on the bus listened to Fatima as she told a story they should have gotten from their own grandparents. Whether the Mexican lady—who, to the passengers, seemed like the direct recipient of Fatima’s words—understood her or just pitied her solitude, she took Fatima’s hand and patted it comfortingly in her lap.
“It takes time to love a place, just as it takes time to love a man,” Scheherazade said. “Did you learn to love Marwan by the time you got to New York?”
Fatima shook her head, and the Mexican lady patted her hand again. “We stayed only one day in New York—with a cousin of Marwan’s and his six kids,” she continued. “The cousin didn’t have a job. He had lost his job at a Syrian silk factory that made Japanese robes for Japan. All the factories were closed because Marwan said the country was depressed. The entire way on the train to Detroit it was depressed. But then in Detroitthere was life, smoke pouring out of buildings so big and long that I thought they could reach Deir Zeitoon. And everyone had jobs.”
“Just like Marwan.” Scheherazade smiled.
“Almost.” Fatima sighed. “On the boat, Marwan told me that because of the depressing times, Mr. Ford had let him go when he went to Lebanon because so many other people needed his job. But when we arrived at the train station in Detroit, the first thing Ibrahim told Marwan was that General Motors was hiring again to build machines for the war in Europe,
She sat far away from two teenage boys with nose rings conversing in a language that required only two words—
dude
and
cool
—and the gesticulating of their hands and heads in a pattern that resembled wild animals more than people.
She didn’t want to appear even crazier than they, yet there was so little time to waste. She could sit and fret about Amir and the house. Or she could tell Scheherazade more about her two husbands so that Scheherazade could reveal her method of death and therefore let her know how much time she actually had left to fret. Everyone on the bus would think she was talking to herself, but what was wrong with her being just one more crazy person on the bus? It was not like she’d be riding it many more days, anyway. And there were no Arab ladies onboard to gossip about her tomorrow at Suheir Lababidi’s funeral. She turned to Scheherazade to begin the story of the man who brought her to America. “This Los Angeles doesnot even have a football team, so Marwan would not have liked it,” she started. “They try to be beautiful with their beach, but this is no Detroit.”
“As my father the
wazir
, the minister of state, used to say, the people of Mecca know their streets best.” Scheherazade nodded.
“Detroit’s streets are not mine, but still it is the best city in America,” Fatima continued. “When I arrived in New York with Marwan, it wasn’t paved with gold, like Mama had heard it would be. But I had never seen buildings so tall, so tall that I thought they might have touched God when their tops disappeared into the clouds. I was sure humans could not live so high up in the sky. I thought something so far up could not stand by itself for so long, and I kept covering my head, anticipating one to fall. When I finally opened my eyes and looked ahead instead of up, people stood in long lines for bread that was hard and thick, and shop clerks chased kids in rags for stealing apples. Big, big signs with lights advertised things I’d never heard of, and the streets were filled with hundreds of motorcars, not just one like Deir Zeitoon, and women wore funny hats, and so did the men, even Marwan, who said it was what gentlemen did.”
Fatima did not know that in telling this story of America she had reverted to English. The black and white people on the bus listened to Fatima as she told a story they should have gotten from their own grandparents. Whether the Mexican lady—who, to the passengers, seemed like the direct recipient of Fatima’s words—understood her or just pitied her solitude, she took Fatima’s hand and patted it comfortingly in her lap.
“It takes time to love a place, just as it takes time to love a man,” Scheherazade said. “Did you learn to love Marwan by the time you got to New York?”
Fatima shook her head, and the Mexican lady patted her hand again. “We stayed only one day in New York—with a cousin of Marwan’s and his six kids,” she continued. “The cousin didn’t have a job. He had lost his job at a Syrian silk factory that made Japanese robes for Japan. All the factories were closed because Marwan said the country was depressed. The entire way on the train to Detroit it was depressed. But then in Detroitthere was life, smoke pouring out of buildings so big and long that I thought they could reach Deir Zeitoon. And everyone had jobs.”
“Just like Marwan.” Scheherazade smiled.
“Almost.” Fatima sighed. “On the boat, Marwan told me that because of the depressing times, Mr. Ford had let him go when he went to Lebanon because so many other people needed his job. But when we arrived at the train station in Detroit, the first thing Ibrahim told Marwan was that General Motors was hiring again to build machines for the war in Europe,
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